Throwing the book at the SBOE

No issue has stirred the emotions of Texas Democrats this year more than the State Board of Education’s textbook standards, so it was hardly a surprise that a Texas Freedom Network workshop on the subject drew an overflow crowd Saturday at the Texas State Democratic Convention.

State Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, and state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, urged attendees to ask every candidate in Texas for their position on curriculum standards.

“We need to take this issue and embed it in every state legislative race,” Villarreal said. “This will put Democrats in Austin.”

Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, joined Villarreal and Davis in calling for textbook debates to be taken out of the rancorous, politically charged SBOE. Miller advocated a move by the state legislature that would limit SBOE to a supermajority veto power over curriculum decisions made by an independent group of scholars.

Villarreal said, “We will make sure that teachers and educators from our best universities are deciding on textbooks, and not political hacks.”